Watson, our tent has been stolen......

    In a break from my usual routine of films and games I am now going to do my first proper review of a TV show. Sherlock was released on the BBC a couple of years ago and I managed to miss all of it on TV, I did manage to catch a re-run later on though and ended up buying the DVD to watch all of it. There is currently a second series available to buy too however I have only seen the second series on TV and only once, so this will focus on the first series; as when I originally wrote it the second series had not yet been released. I will try to bring in the little I can remember of the second series in my conclusions. Now to make this easier for myself I have broken down the review into four parts, being how it fairs as a TV show, how good an adaptation of the source material it is. The entertainment value will be third, finishing with the stay ability of the show.

     So how is it as a TV show?

Overall I would say that it is a damn fine show, it is fun, exciting and very well made. I have to give special compliments to the casting of this program. Holmes is excellently played by Benedict Cumberbatch, but I was really blown away by the supporting cast, Martin Freeman’s Watson is as fine a Watson a long term fan could have asked for and Inspector Lastrade as played by Rupert Graves was an excellent choice and possibly my favourite of the show. The skill of the casting director reared its head again in series two with the casting of Laura Pulver as Irene Adler. Along with the major characters the villains showed accuracy of the casters eye. Moriarty as played by Andrew Scott was fun, young and full of energy creating a different and much more menacing antithesis to Holmes. Beyond the main man I felt the casting of Phil Davis as “the cabby” in the first episode helped create a great villain both intimidating and sympathetic with an open friendly demeanour, a dangerous enemy.

    

    The casting being the major good part of the show there were other details of the show that helped elevate its status, primarily it never outstays its welcome. The episodes all run at around 90 minutes, each long enough to go into the necessary detail to tell a good story while not being so long that they become dull or overcomplicated. Mixed with great pacing (especially in the series 1 finale “The Great Game”) you ended up with a series comfortable to watch and reflect on.

     

    However there were some issues, the major being the series story; the individual episodes were all wonderfully written and excellently made. When put together though the problem arose of the super powered villain. Each episode was related to Moriarty, and for me this seemed to give him too much power. I felt that if only two episodes were related to him then Holmes would have had more room to move around the world created by Conan Doyle in the original stories. With Moriarty controlling each episode the series gains too much direction and Holmes is limited to a small section of a vast and detailed world of criminals and misunderstandings that defines the original material.

So that’s how it fairs as a show, good but not perfect, but how is it as an adaptation?

Now I am a giant fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories, I have read them since a young age and have seen most adaptations of his numerous books. ITV have their old but long running series based on the stories, and Hammer house of horror even did a decent Hound of the Baskervilles. So in short I know what should be there and I know that the show had a hard job living up to some of the other adaptations. Adding to all this the show is also a modernisation so I knew going in it would not be the most faithful adaptation to the books, many of the adaptive issues therefore are simply due to the change in times.

One of the major changes is definitely due to the change in setting, Holmes is no longer patriotic, a change I can explain, England no longer had the Empire and is now just a shadow of a country, there is little reason to be patriotic these days and the loss of such a trait is in no way upsetting. The change in his character that does annoy and upset me though has nothing to do with the times. In the show Holmes is an arrogant unsympathetic sociopath, even referring to himself as one. In the stories while Holmes does not really like people he knows how to be around them, he offers sympathy, holds an empathetic side and is in no way arrogant. Occasionally he may show off but not to the extent of the new Holmes, in the new series Sherlock berates people and infers they’re stupid for not seeing what he sees, he brags about his abilities and intelligence. The books and older shows had Holmes simply explaining his process, he doesn’t condescend or patronise he simply shows them how in the hope they will learn.

Other character changes came in Watson. The new look and feel of the character was a welcome change truly marking him as new, more than his source material, along with showing Martin Freeman as a great actor.  The addition of therapy at the beginning I thought was an excellent inclusion truly representing the problems faced by modern soldiers and how the issues he faces are dealt with by the contemporary world. It was not all roses for Watson though; an important part of his character was a gambling addiction and the constant reference that Holmes looks after his money. The loss of this character flaw changed the dynamic of the relationship as while Watson emotionally and morally controlled Holmes from time to time, Holmes financially controlled Watson.

The final big character change was in Moriarty, no longer a professor and now a lot younger. Overall I liked the change, Moriarty only appears once or twice in the books but is inferred to be behind many more. They held this attribute in the show, keeping him in the shadows communicating through proxies and not letting Holmes find him until he wants. Although I did think that perhaps he was a bit young to be so powerful and that he could have done with being a little older. Despite the age he was fun as a villain and very intimidating when necessary, he often reminded me of the Joker, especially Mark Hamills rendition of that influential character.

A further, better, change, was the change in the investigative process specifically the use of mobile phones. This was an excellent way to see how Sherlock’s mind works, to see the deductions flowing through him. The phone also showed us how he looks for information and searches for connections, a wonderful way to modernise the scenes of Holmes and Watson searching through the newspapers and libraries for information sometimes crucial to the case at hand. Using the changes in communication really helped the show distinguish itself from others as well as help create a much faster pace allowing Holmes to move faster through a case.

Generally the show is faithful in style but not in character. The changes are explicable, mostly, and generally welcomed. It is however the characters that made the success of the stories not the style and the characters did not always match up right.

So a decent adaptation and a good modernisation, but is it entertaining?

Well, yes, there isn’t much more to say. It is funny, thrilling and has interesting well written stories. The characters as fun and easy to love, in general the high quality of the show demonstrates how far Gatiss and Moffat pushed the boat out to create an enjoyable ride for the audience.

Finally the stay ability, will it continue well?

Now this is where things get confusing, as this was originally meant for pre-series 2. At the time I felt it would do well if the character moved with the story and change the people involved. As well as thinking that due to the sheer vastness of the source material the show will never run out of original stories. I also felt that it could end up similar to the show “Lie to me” once Moriarty dies. In that the show will trundle along without direction. The second series showed some of these beliefs to be correct, the stories were original and the characters moved along nicely with the plot developments. Then Moriarty died, as a veteran Holmes fan I knew Sherlock hadn’t died, and I have yet to figure out what we all missed, but now I worry about the third series and so we will all have to wait for a while to find out these things, and see exactly how the writers deal with the loss of the arch villain.

Really though I like this show, it is an excellent example of how to make a good series, and many other television programmes could learn from it, especially over in the states. I hope it continues well and as a hard core fan I was impressed I look forward to sampling more.

Like Alien, without anything decent......

     Well it has been a while since I last wrote on here, sorry about that I’ve been quite busy of late travelling around (search for “A colonialist abroad” if you would like to read those adventures) and busy at work and unfortunately this has left me little time to write, but I am back now and hope to get some more posts out more frequently.

     Let’s get started shall we.

     We begin with the 2011 sci-fi horror film “Apollo 18”. I am going to start as I mean to go on, this film was bad, I mean seriously bad. I would like to leave it at that and relive it no longer but my integrity, self-esteem and the love of my friends means I must continue.

     Now I really didn’t like this because I found it initially pretentious, claiming the film is made up of real footage painstakingly re-constructed by some people living in dark cellars (no doubt terrified the CIA, FBI, MI6, MI5, NSA, KGB and Fed ex are all looking for them). The problem with claiming real footage; is that the film creates the expectation that what we will see is going to be as realistic and down to earth as possible something rarely achieve - especially in the horror genre. Obviously this is because the genre itself tends to move towards more fictional element such as supernatural killers etc. Even with that fact in mind when watching a science fiction film you do not want to be told that what you are about to see is real, it detracts from the experience as that thought sticks in the mind of the viewer and everything that happens that could not possibly real (and there is a lot in this movie) becomes a negative experience with the audience shouting at the screen in frustration at the lies the film has told them. This is the first minutes of the movie, remember. Even worse than the pretentions of “realism” the entire film seems to borrow heavily from the film “The fourth kind” the god awful Mila Jovovich movie mentioned in a previous post, this is something I did not take kindly to.

     Now for some juicy details about the films problems. Initially the plot is ridiculous, I can suspend my disbelief enough to believe there are rock like crab aliens on the moon, fine however why did this creature not attack the previous 17 missions to the moon? Other questions raised include why on earth (or the moon ha ha) was there only one Russian cosmonaut? That is not possible, there would have to be at least two if one had gotten injured or sick or needed the loo while an important call had to be made.

     More problems came in the simple way the horror was created. There was little suspense, no tension and absolutely no subtlety. The three most important aspects of the horror genre were completely avoided, without those key aspects all you get, as I have said, is pretentious thriller, and calling it a thriller is generous. Instead of the three keys, what I call the three undead musketeers of horror (snigger) you had an overt film so excited to show what was happening on screen that it actually circled it like they do to number plates in police shows, swiftly followed by zoom in on the little movement. Pieces that if left untouched in a still shot of the absolute quiet of the lunar background would become terrifying. Small movements would seem like large tectonic shifts by comparison and create an actual atmosphere rather than a show and tell exhibition.

     Beyond the sheer lack of knowledge displayed in creating a horror picture, the film lacked any creative talent in creating characters. There were three men on the moon and one in the station orbiting the moon; all four were non-entities, simple, dull and uncreatively written. They come across as people who are just there; they’re in no way relatable not really people just a bunch of guys with no real motivation. Maybe it is a case that astronauts are not really easy to relate to for a layman and those astronauts and other space farers will be able to understand their decisions, actions and motives. But that does not excuse the film, the writers should have tried to make their protagonists as close to the average Joe Bloggs in the street as possible, this way the fate of the men becomes tragic. Instead their deaths and falls from grace became routine, boring.

     These problems while detracting from the film are not its largest. The problem that irritates and angers me most is that this film had real potential. The premise and setting were as fresh; the ideas behind the men involved weren’t terrible just poorly played with. The strings were attached here they just weren’t tight enough; too much was left flapping in the wind. In truth this film was a disappointment for me, I had anticipated its arrival and instead was met with disappointment at every hurdle; initially delayed in the UK and finally met by a film that barely justified the £5 fee.

 Now these things are all easily explicable, the production of this was plagued with problems, directorial changes being the worst and most apparent. Along with actors pulling out and putting backing in, all of this delayed production. I would say that the delays made the crew lose momentum, get bored as such creating a boring experience. Which is the real issue I took, I was bored, and I had seen it all before and was not impressed.

     Really all I can say was that it was boring; the pacing was off by so much that it was hard to maintain interest being fast where it should be slow and slow where it should be fast. There was no build, things happened but they felt like simple things, not events in a seamless flow. The film never had any gravity (LOL) and just passed by like a guy in a passing car. (HHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO).

With the end of the original trilogy there have been rumours and whispers of many different X-men origins films. With Wolverine being the first, receiving mixed critical reception and some box office success in its first weekend, it made sense for another origins film to be made, while rumours of there being separate films for each character (personally I heard of a Cyclops and a Storm movie being made). During these rumour storms though an actual picture was being made, namely X-men First class. Those of you who have read my previous posts will know I wrote an expectations piece in which First class was mentioned, those with a good memory (or the ability to read things a little down the page) will note how I was not excited but cautious about this picture. Surprisingly these fears and initial beliefs turned out to be right on the money, mostly.

I'll start with the plot, something I had not considered or heard about previously as I knew almost nothing of it. The start shows both the main characters (Magneto and Professor X) as children. Magneto's introduction is very chilling, atmospheric and quite horrifying being set in a Nazi concentration camp where footage from the first X-men movie is used to move onto newly filmed scenes. During the scene we meet Kevin Bacons character as the main villain of the piece, but we shall get to him late. The opening scene involve a wonderfully done reveal scene in which you are suddenly shown that Bacons office is attached to a torture chamber. The entire scene is evocative of the times it is set in, and works well to introduce two out of the three leads. Professor X's introduction is by far the weaker of the two opening scenes, showing him catching a thief (who turns out to be Mystique disguised as his mother) stealing from his fridge. Upon discovering she is a mutant like him, as it would appear the idea of powers appearing during puberty was thrown out of the window for this instalment in the series. The scene is there to show how from an early age Charles Xavier was a force of morality and understood when things are right and wrong. Not wanting to go into too much detail on the characters in these scenes, it should be mentioned that the differences in these two scenes highlight the films essence, in that Magneto has the more interesting story. From these opening scenes the plot goes into the creation of the X-men as we know them, only with Magneto and Mystique on the good team. Despite the interesting scenes seeing the two main men grow up and become James McAvoy (Prof. X) and Michael Fassbender (Magneto) the plot takes some rather odd turns, deciding to look at the plots of the other films then forget them or voluntarily shout FUCK LINEARITY, as certain franchise plot holes begin to appear, for example I’m sure in the first X-men Xavier states that him and Magneto built cerebro, but in this it was built by Beast. Also Hugh Jackmans cameo is wonderful, but leaves the question of why didn't Xavier remember him in the first movie, as he is definitely a memorable person.

From here the plot just gets worse with a cold war setting acting as a ham-fisted attempt at subtlety symbolising the prejudice and discriminatory behaviour of humans against mutants, a theme present throughout everything to do with the X-men. While the setting does give justification to the actions of Xavier and Magneto and their team of teenage ninja super mutants, it also gives the entire film an atmosphere of “Oh look how bad it was, it was sooo bad that no one could get along because they believed different things” becoming something which is slightly preachy and can ruin some of the better scenes. Then there is the elephant in the plot, Mr Bacons grand evil plan, which involves starting world war three, and hoping the nuclear holocaust will cause more mutation and so he can take over the burnt, irradiated hell hole that would be earth. Despite the idiocy of wanting to rule a charred rock, the film shows how mutants were around before what Bacon's character calls the age of the atom, an age he attributes the appearance of mutant to. An argument which makes no logical sense as he was a mutant long before any atoms were split, and he even refers to it as evolution! If it were a direct result of atomic explosions and radiation surely every mutant would be either Japanese or mountain men from the hills of Nevada, and I'm pretty sure they made that movie, at least three times. The final ridiculous part of his dumb ass plan is that he can not ensure the survival of any mutants, he doesn't know if as mutants they survive gamma radiation, some may survive the blasts, but then how can he know if they will join him, lets face it the most likely to survive is Wolverine and we all know he don't take shit from no one. In essence the plot is mostly bad, some good parts, but mostly bad, Michael Platt was just as I expected as well, awesome but only with about ten to fifteen minutes screen time, acting only as a way for Xavier and Magneto to work together, using Beasts Cerebro, to find mutants as well as introduce the relationship between Magneto and Mystique. Obviously the plot isn't great but it was also probably the best we were going to get and there are plenty of worse stories out there.

Now none of you want to read about the plot, I expect many of you have skipped that paragraph, if you have go back and read it, now. Ok you've done that? Good. The next big thing, and the part of the film everyone wants to know about are the men behind the legends, the boys before they became the men we all know and love. Namely Mr Charles Xavier A.K.A Prof. X and Erik Lensherr A.K.A Magneto.

Lets start with Mr Xavier, as a character in general Xavier is supposed to be a man with unshakeable morals, charismatic but not egotistic, a natural born leader due to his nature not a desire for power. First class conveys many of these attributes while adding some more. Seeing him as a young man in Oxford we get to see a different side of the great moralist, we see him mercilessly hitting on women using a speech about mutation, I would guess to bamboozle them into bed, we also get to see him downing a yard of ale. Additions which make the audience see Xavier as a fun loving young man with a small ego, creating a more interesting character. However as mentioned earlier we see his extreme moral view when he is very young, showing the man as someone who always knew what was right and what was not. Though effective at highlighting the better parts of his personality I think it would have been more interesting to see how Xavier became the man we know, to see his morality change and develop throughout the film, allowing the audience to witness the creation of a truly great character. Instead we are simply shown that he was always a good man and that nothing can change that. More issues arise with the relationship between him and Raven A.K.A Mystique, mostly bringing in more linearity plot holes and making a bit more of mess out of the franchise. Overall though McAvoy was thoroughly convincing, he played the part well putting his own twist on the character presenting him in a way previously unseen, it was refreshing and did more than simply convey Xavier as the same man but younger.

Add caption

James McAvoy as Professor X – finding out what you want for tea

The next big man was of course Mr Lensherr, Magneto. Magneto is by far the most developed character of the picture, he is wholly sympathetic and his quest for vengeance makes you want nothing more from the film than to see him hunt down Kevin Bacon and destroy him in some wonderful mess of metal. His personal back story proved more interesting than any other and when he finally completes his purpose and becomes the great leader of the Brotherhood we are with him all the way. In this instalment he was portrayed by Michael Fassbender who was so good sometimes it was scary he portrayed the characters arrogance, personal magnetism and darkness very convincingly, while still making us believe he was a real man. But there is one very very bad part of Fassbenders performance, and that is his accent, it is never the same. Almost every scene brings a new accent with it, almost as if he played lucky dip on how to talk, while this could be a side effect of having to speak four different languages throughout the film it still breaks the immersion, pushing you right out of some of the more emotional scenes as you giggle away asking what on earth is he doing with his voice. Despite the lingual problems the performance is generally solid with his interactions with Xavier being some of the most important scenes, as well as the best. Magneto is by far the best part of the film, and in general his design is the most interesting, his costumes make him look like an assassin, moving silently through the world using what ever is near by as a weapon, for me the look of the character is what made him compelling, well dressed and neat hiding a deep power and a deeper anger. That is of course until the end where he appears with his full Magneto costume on, as in the costume from the the comics, and yes it looks ridiculous, and acts as another thing which makes you giggle away maniacally. In fact the design of the costume makes you thankful for the originals which managed to encompass all parts of the Magneto's look while making it both good looking and intimidating.

Michael Fassbender as Magneto – Considering how magnets work

Along with the two main men, we are introduced to a number of other mutants and characters. We meet Havoc, Darwin, Banshee, Angel, Beast, Mystique, Emma Frost and a Dr Moira MacTaggert as a CIA agent. Now all these people are cool to watch when using their powers but other than that they are forgettable, most having only a few lines of dialogue, with almost no attempt to make then sympathetic. As the CIA agent Rose Byrne is simply pointless, serving no purpose other than the love interest for Xavier, she does nothing other than contribute to crippling Xavier and gets a Superman style memory erasing kiss from the man in wheels. The other mutants are generally the same, simply acting as plot devices to show the beginnings of Xavier's school for the gifted, and to show the caring teacher that is Xavier, and the revolutionary leader that is Magneto. I will hand it to Nicholas Hoult for his role as beast though, despite my personal objections to his continued living he did portray the character with some emotion and did show Beast as something different to previous incarnations, although it must be said that Kelsey Grammars portrayal in X-men: The last stand was much better. The final character worth mentioning was of course Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw, the villain of the piece, I have already mentioned his retarded plan, so now I'll mention his retarded character. He is shown as intimidating for no reason, I get he has a big red devil with him, but we are still given no reason for him being able to scare high ranking Americans and Russians other than the fact that he is the villain and that he is supposed to do that. Further he is supposed to be some great leader, a man who people follow, and yet when we see him he is just bland, he never gives a lasting impression or makes you feel that he could seriously complete his plan. Oddly though When he is simply referred to as Schmidt, as the beginning, and you think he is a human Nazi scientist, not a mutant, he is genuinely intimidating, making a truly chilling performance which coupled with the reveal of his laboratory makes you fear him, you know just by looking at him what he will do to unlock Magneto's potential . Oddly I think the entire film would have been better with him as a human, not a mutant, as a human using mutants and managing to defeat the X-men when they have distinct advantages makes him seem a more convincing villain.

In the end though what makes a movie worth watching or not is if it is entertaining, and First Class is, but not for the reasons you would expect. The action is good, and the CGI scenes are impressive, if not a little dull sometimes. What makes this film entertaining is seeing the birth of the two men, seeing how Magneto was created by horrors forced upon him by an evil man, and how Professor X was obsessed with genetics and mutation, creating the teacher and father figure he is known for. More than this though the truly entertaining parts of these films are seeing these two be friends, whether it is the friendly banter between them or the deep conversations on responsibility and being better men. These dialogues are well written, well presented and hold the film together, when everything else around them like plot, likeable sub-characters and abysmal accents fall down these scenes stay strong. And those scenes alone really changed my mind on the film, it is worth seeing just for these parts, you will remember them and they will stick with you, especially if you are a fan of the previous films. Seriously check this movie out, just don't expect to see the greatest X-men movie ever made, just expect to see some semi-decent action and some really cool dialogue. Oh and watch out for the scene in which you see the burnt world and Bacon at the head of his legions, is only a few seconds in length but for me was one of the more beautiful scenes.